Lady Antebellum Give Thanks for First No. 1, “I Run to You”

Lady Antebellum reveled in the success of their first No. 1 hit, “I Run to You,”
with biscuits and jam at the Loveless Café in Nashville on Monday afternoon (Aug. 24), surrounded by well-wishers from the music industry.

“All of these people have come together today and everybody that is a part of this song has made it what it is. I mean, it’s really amazing. We’re so excited and just humbled, and feel so blessed,” Hillary Scott told CMT Insider. “To be celebrating our first No. 1. … I mean, goodness gracious. We were excited when ‘Love Don’t Live Here’
broke the Top 20. I’ll never forget, we were like, ‘We’re in!’ The fact that we’re standing here is just really cool.”

Dave Haywood added that the group never thought that “I Run to You” would be chosen as a single, which made the achievement even sweeter. “We couldn’t be happier,” he said. “A great day, great people here.”

“Yeah, a lot of friends out here supporting us,” agreed Charles Kelley. “It took a lot of work to get this thing to No. 1, and we’re blessed to be here and have a day off from the road for a little bit, so we’re going to celebrate!”

The group is on a winning streak, after capturing the CMA award for best new artist in 2008 and earning two 2009 Grammy nominations. “I Run to You” was their first gold-selling digital single, and they accepted gold plaques for their self-titled debut album on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. They’ve spent the summer opening for Kenny Chesney‘s Sun City Carnival tour and recently released a new single, “Need You Now.”

“There’s always something to be thankful for,” said Kelley. “Really, that’s the truth. There are nice little stepping stones that have been able to keep us going. It’s going to be interesting when we hit some roadblocks. I think that’s going to be our true test as a group and just sticking together and getting through it. But right now, we have absolutely zero to complain about! Everything is going so, so great. If ‘Need You Now’ has even just an inkling of success that ‘I Run To You’ had, then it will have been job well done for us.”

“It’s just a very honest lyric,” said Scott. “It’s about calling someone who you care about, who you aren’t with anymore, who you still love in your weakest moment in the middle of the night and just saying that you need them. Just that vulnerability and honesty — I think it’s a song that we can all relate to, whether we want to admit it or not. We just felt like it was a great first impression for the new record.”

“I think our fans are ready for some new stuff too,” said Haywood. “We’ve got a good core group of people that follow us and we’re ready! … We’ve got a lot of songs left over from the first record that we didn’t get to that we’re using for the second album and we’ve got a lot of new stuff. Yeah, we’re looking forward to putting something new out.”

Asked about the challenges of choosing the right material for the album, Haywood replied, “We’ve done a lot of writing for this record, but you know, the best songs always find their way to the top. There will be a couple hard decisions in there, but for the most part, we kind of know which ones are shining through more than others.”

“It’s always when you go into the second half where you really have to start cutting things and soul searching and having those conversations to decide what’s going to really work the best,” Scott said.

“We’re just trying to make a good balanced record,” Kelley added. “One of the greatest compliments we’ve gotten a couple times is that with the first record, the fans tell us that it takes them through this nice journey. That’s what we want this second record to do — have something where they can pop it in and never change the dial. Keep it going from start to finish, so that’s the goal.”